Six New England authors named finalists for George Washington history prize

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Seven finalists were named for the $50,000 George Washington Prize — which recognizes works written about the founding era in American history — and six of the works have authors with New England ties.

T.H. Breen, a history professor at the University of Vermont, made the list with his new book, “George Washington’s Journey: The President Forges a New Nation.” Nathaniel Philbrick of Nantucket was honored for “Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution.” And two-time Pulitzer winner Alan Taylor, who was born in Portland, Maine, attended Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and went to graduate school at Brandeis University, is the author of “American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.”

Three Harvard professors are also among the finalists. Annette Gordon-Reed, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, wrote “ ‘Most Blessed of the Patriarchs’: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination” with Peter S. Onuf. Historian Jane Kamensky published “A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley,” and law professor Michael J. Karman was cited for “The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution.”

The winner of the award will be announced at a gala honoring the finalists in May at Mount Vernon.